The National Science Foundation (NSF) has released its “ADVANCE: Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers” opportunity. ADVANCE is designed to address the underrepresentation of women faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. ADVANCE will help identify and eliminate the organizational barriers to gender equity through three tracks:

• Track 1 – Institutional Transformation (IT): IT awards support the development of innovative organizational change strategies within one institution (two-year or four-year academic institution) across all STEM disciplines
• Track 2 – Adaptation: Adaptation awards support the adaptation and implementation of evidence-based organizational change strategies, ideally those developed by ADVANCE IT projects. These strategies may be focused on one or more STEM disciplines
• Track 3 – Partnership: Partnership awards support two or more academic institutions and/or STEM organizations working together to create national or regional impact and result in systemic change within one STEM discipline, several STEM disciplines, or all STEM disciplines. Partnership proposals must include a final year focused on sustainability and/or scale-up, communication, and evaluation

NSF anticipates making 26 grant awards between $1 million and $3 million each. For the initial round of funding, letters of intent are due December 14, 2016, and full proposals are due January 11, 2017. Subsequent due dates are listed here. For more information on preparing and submitting NSF proposals, consult the NSF Application Guide or contact Stacie at Words for Good (Stacie@wordsforgood.com).